Posts related to ‘Business Services’

Bill Gates Gets Further Entrenched in Waste Sector (RSG, WM, MSFT, BRK-A)

Bill Gates ImageIf you thought that Bill Gates might have an ambition beyond just passive investing in the garbage and waste disposal sector, you might be correct.  Bill Gates’ Cascade Investment, L.L.C. and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust own a collective share of about 15% of Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE: RSG).  Republic is the #2 waste management player now that it acquired Allied Waste Industries behind the dominant Waste Management Inc. (NYSE: WM).

Today came the news that Gates’ confidant Michael Larson has joined Republic’s Board of Directors effective October 28, 2009, and Larson will also become a member of Republic’s Compensation Committee and its Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.  Larson is the Business Manager of Cascade Investment and is the Chief Investment Officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust.  In short, Bill Gates (or his investment funds) is not just going to be a mere large investor in the garbage sector.  That is an entrenchment into a company, and there seems to be a reason for it.
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Posted on: October 30, 2009 – 11:40 am in Activist Investor, Buffett, Business Services, Private Equity, Utilities, , , ,

Ideation Cleared for China Advertising Activities (IDI, FMCN, VISN, AMCN)

Money ImageIdeation Acquisition Corp. (AMEX: IDI) has been freed up to become SearchMedia, as expected.  The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, issued a release noting that its shareholders approved all of the company’s proposals related to the acquisition of SearchMedia International Ltd.  As we have noted, investors and traders were using Ideation as a cheap backdoor play into the aspect of advertising in China, very similar to Focus Media Holding Ltd. (NASDAQ: FMCN), the larger pure-play Chinese advertising stock, and to the smaller players there called VisionChina Media Inc. (NASDAQ: VISN) and AirMedia Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AMCN).
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Posted on: October 27, 2009 – 9:51 am in Business Services, China, Media, , , ,

Wholesale Inflation Remains Muted

Money ImageThe Labor Department has released the September Producer Price Index, the measure of wholesale inflation.  We did see a slightly raised Consumer Price Index last week and that had many of the inflation bugs on edge for the wholesale data.  Yet the inflationary pressure appears to be remaining tame.  The headline PPI came in at -0.6% after showing a +1.7% gain in August, and estimates from Dow Jones were -0.2% and estimates from Bloomberg were -0.3%.  The core rate of ex-food and energy came in at -0.1% versus a Dow Jones consensus of +0.1% and a Bloomberg consensus of +0.1%.
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Posted on: October 20, 2009 – 8:43 am in Business Services, Consumer Goods, Economy

The Back-Door Play on Advertising in China (IDI, FMCN, VISN, AMCN, LAMR, CCO)

china mapIdeation Acquisition Corp. (AMEX: IDI) gave us a volume spike alert over at VSInvestor.com, and it is very unusual to see a special purpose acquisition company suddenly have exponential trading volume. The company has a pending merger vote and it gave an investor presentation just last week at the ROTH China Conference.  Today’s interest is after Ladenburg Thalmann picked up new analyst coverage with a “BUY” rating ahead of a pending merger vote with SearchMedia, an outdoor billboard and in-elevator advertiser in China.

Investors are starting to treat this SPAC as a pre-merger entrance into the Chinese advertising market.  This in a sense gives small-cap investors a chance to buy into what they will hope can become the next Focus Media Holding Ltd. (NASDAQ: FMCN), the larger pure-play Chinese advertising stock with a $1.88 billion market cap… Or even the other player called VisionChina Media Inc. (NASDAQ: VISN) with a $716 million value today after a 3% gain, or the AirMedia Group Inc. (NASDAQ: AMCN) with a $554 million market cap after an 8% gain today.  It will be a stretch to compare this smaller player to Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CCO) or to Lamar Advertising Co. (NASDAQ: LAMR), but those are the clear leaders in America for U.S. investors.
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Posted on: October 19, 2009 – 1:23 pm in Activist Investor, Business Services, China, Entertainment, Media, Private Equity, , , , , ,

IPO Market Showing Concern (MG, TLCR, BSBR, EM, CLNY, RA, FIG, ARI, VITC, ECHO, CPC, GAME, SNDA, CYOU, SOHU, CPIX, OMER, BX)

bull-and-bear-image2It was just in August that practically every single initial public offering was trading above its IPO price.  The market had rallied significantly, and still rallied after that to just this week have a 10,000 handle on the DJIA.  Investors started warming to more risk-based capital, and investment bankers were finally able to get deals done.  Even waves and waves of secondary offerings were able to be absorbed merely by brokers being able to tell clients they could buy stock at an implied discount to the average price over the few days before.  But suddenly, the IPO market has turned out some real dogs with fleas.

Mistra Group (NYSE: MG) priced its offering at $12.50 on October 7.  While it traded as low as $12.17, it has escaped the hangman’s file of ‘busted deals’ as it is now a $13.51 stock.  The one thing that may have helped was that it priced under an initial range of $14 to $16 per share.  Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: TLCR) also went into the busted category temporarily after hitting a low of $18.01 after a $19.00 pricing.  Fortunately, it is up at $19.97 so is also now out of the hangman’s eyes.  Still, an 8% gain and a 5% gain in this market might leave some investors feeling lonely.  Banco Santander Brasil S.A. (NYSE: BSBR) was a very large IPO of over 500 million shares at an implied $13.40, and this one got out of the “busted IPO” dungeon on Thursday and closed at $13.51 on Friday.  Before Thursday it had spent its 6 prior trading sessions as a busted IPO.

Emdeon Inc. (NYSE: EM) had traded above $18.00 briefly after its IPO priced at $15.50 in August. But now the healthcare revenue and payment cycle management solutions provider, which is supposed to be a healthcare winner ahead, closed down at $15.35 on Friday  and had been slightly lower during the week.  This was effectively a re-IPO as Emdeon had been public before after General Atlantic Partners acquired it and it also received an investment from Hellman & Friedman. It also has ties to James Clark, the Netscape founder and was part of Healtheon.

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Posted on: October 17, 2009 – 8:45 am in ADR, Biotech, Business Services, China, Editor's Picks, Entertainment, IPOs, Mergers and Buy Outs, Private Equity, REIT, Secondary Offering, Trading Alert, Value Investing, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IPO ALERT: China Real Estate Information Involves Other Companies (CRIC, EJ, SINA)

china mapChina Real Estate Information Corporation (NASDAQ: CRIC) has priced its 18 million share initial public offering at $12.00 per share.  While this is not an easy structure, this IPO has ramifications for two other big Chinese public companies.  CRIC is a subsidiary of E-House (China) Holdings Limited (NYSE: EJ) and it will merge with the online real estate business of SINA Corporation (NASDAQ: SINA) effective as of the closing of CRIC’s IPO.
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Posted on: October 16, 2009 – 9:21 am in ADR, Business Services, China, Mergers and Buy Outs, REIT, , ,

Chinese ADS IPO Filing: BJB Career Education Company (BJB)

BJB Career LogoLast night there was an initial public offering filing from a company called BJB Career Education Company, Limited.  This is a Chinese IT training company and it plans to list its ADS’s on the NYSE under the stock ticker “BJB.”  No financial terms of the deal were announced in the first filing from the company, but its amended filing showed the typical “up to $100 million in shares sold.”  It did list the underwriters as Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs as the book-runners, and William Blair and Piper Jaffray as co-managers in the offering.
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Posted on: October 15, 2009 – 10:06 am in ADR, Business Services, China, IPOs, Technology,

Services Sector Back To Growth, At Least Some

Money Stack PicThe service sector is now back to expanding, even officially, according to the ISM non-Manufacturing data just released.  The Institute for Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing Business Survey came in at 50.9% for September 2009, which is above that 50.0% break-even hurdle between growth an contraction and above the 50.0% that was expected in the Bloomberg economist survey.  The highest reading that Bloomberg had noted  was 51%.  This represents 2.5% higher than the 48.4% reported in August after 11 consecutive months of contraction. Just be advised that it was only 5 of the 18 industries that reported expansion.
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Posted on: October 5, 2009 – 10:21 am in Business Services, Economy, Labor & Unions

S&P Knocking Down Another $578 Billion in CDO Ratings

Burning Money PicStandard & Poor’s Ratings Services is making a house-cleaning exercise which could have a broad impact on the ratings of thousands of already-troubled securities.  S&P is changing its ratings criteria for collateralized debt obligations backed by corporate debt, or CDO’s.  You know, those things that still can’t be properly valued by banks and that blew up the financial system….  As a result of this criteria recalibration, roughly 4,790 CDO tranches with an implied value of about $578 billion is now on watch for downgrade.

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Posted on: September 17, 2009 – 11:45 am in Analyst Calls, Banking, Bonds, Brokerage Firms, Business Services, Economy, Financial Stocks, Regulation, Restatements

How Much Higher Can Omniture Bid Fetch? (OMTR, ADBE, MSFT, GOOG, TWX)

Money Stack ImageOmniture Inc. (NASDAQ: OMTR) seems like another niche ad-tech play that has gone on over the recent years, but it could possibly be much more.  Adobe Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBE) gave a $21.50 per share cash tender buyout price valued at some $1.8 billion.   What is interesting is that there is already a thought over whether the company deserves to get a higher price.  The company’s online marketing suite and other operations make it an interesting acquisition for anyone wanting to get further into advertising intelligence for business optimization that allows for smarter and smarter marketing.
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Posted on: September 16, 2009 – 3:03 pm in Business Services, Entertainment, Internet, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Software, , , , ,

Factory Shifts About To Get Longer?

This morning’s data from the Commerce Department underscores that even a mild return of demand could create a massive relaunch of the United States manufacturing engine without much job growth.  The Commerce Department reported that July business inventories fell for the eleventh month in a row.  The drop of 1% beat the Bloomberg consensus estimates of -0.9% as inventories fell to $1.33 trillion.  The sales were up 0.1% versus a 1.1% gain from June, which is actually the first back-to-back gain seen in 2009.
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Posted on: September 15, 2009 – 12:44 pm in Business Services, Economy, Labor & Unions

Huron… When The Consultants Need Consultants (HURN)

burning-money-picHuron Consulting Group Inc. (NASDAQ: HURN) was a stock we screened early this morning in pre-market hours for its active trading at VSInvestor.com.  We noted that this one was getting destroyed, but the company may have just become one of the worst stocks on NASDAQ.

Huron disclosed that it is restating financial statements for the fiscal years 2006, 2007 and 2008 and Q1 2009.  The restatements pertain to non-cash charges relating to how payments received by the sellers of certain acquired businesses were subsequently redistributed among themselves and to other select Huron employees.  The total estimated impact on net income and EBITDA might not sound that bad on the surface for all restated periods at $57 million, particularly when there is said to be no impact on cash, cash flows from operations or adjusted EBITDA.   Things go from bad to worse after that.
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Posted on: August 3, 2009 – 11:04 am in Business Services, Earnings Warning, SEC, Shareholder Issues,

Buffett Dumps Moody’s (MCO, BRK-A)

Bull and Bear ImageMoody’s Corporation (NYSE: MCO) just got a rather interesting insider selling shares, none other than Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A).  The listed entities were Berkshire itself, National Indemnity, OBH, and GEICO.  The new stake is down to 16.98% from roughly 20.2%.  The filing outlines the terms for more shares to possibly be sold ahead.  Frankly, this should have come long ago.
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Posted on: July 22, 2009 – 5:09 pm in Analyst Calls, Bonds, Buffett, Business Services, Insider Activity, ,

Rethinking a CIT Gamble… Preferred & Senior Vs. Common (CIT, CIT-PA, CIT-PC, CIT-PZ)

CIT LogoCIT Group, Inc. (NYSE: CIT) is trading no different than a warrant or way out of the money call option at this point.  In short, any trading other than a forced sale here is nothing more than a Las Vegas bet.  We have seen  275 million shares of common stock trade as of NOON EST and shares are down 70% right around the $0.50 mark.  Traders are still buying CIT common stock in hopes that some rescue package from outsiders will come by the close of business tomorrow.  Some may still be hoping for an eleventh hour decision by Uncle Sam to give a helping hand even after reports that the government is now not interested in helping.  But even traders with the least amount of concern about the entire risk of capital have to know in the back of their mind that if a Chapter 11 filing comes, then those common shares will be worthless.  This brings up an interesting notion.  If you are going to place a bet, and that is all we consider trading in CIT at this point, then why not consider looking at the preferred shares or even the senior notes?  CIT has 3 easy to find publicly traded alternatives to the common shares:

CIT GROUP INC PREFERRED SERIES A (CIT-PA) is the 6.350% NON-CUMULATIVE PREFERRED STOCK, SERIES A has a Par value of $25.00.  This was $350 million issued, or 14 million shares.  PROSPECTUS

CIT GROUP PREFERRED SERIES C (CIT-PC) are down 80% at $2.41 and have traded 1.2 million shares.  This is the 8.75% non-cumulative perpetual preferred shares that have a Par value of $50.00 and were a $575 million issue. PROSPECTUS

CIT GROUP INC EQUITY UNITS (CIT-PZ) are UP 48% at $9.00 on 2.5 million ‘units.’   This was a $1.38 billion issue and are Equity Units with a $25 Par value and and came originally with a 1/40, or 2.5%, undivided beneficial ownership interest in a $1,000 principal amount senior note due November 15, 2015 issued by CIT.  PROSPECTUS
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Posted on: July 16, 2009 – 11:17 am in Banking, Bonds, Brokerage Firms, Business Services, Financial Stocks, Law, OTC, , , ,

Commercial Real Estate Woes Back in Focus (JPM, BXP, LRY, OFC, SPG, PLD, DLR, AMB, CBG)

Burning Money PicThis morning’s earnings call from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) echoes some of our concern of what is coming in the next wave of real estate problems which could cause the next wave of economic problems.  Commercial real estate.  This forecast by Jamie Dimon, along with profit taking in a down-market morning, is acting to hit large-scale commercial property stocks in REITs and in operating companies.  These are not the only stocks by any means in these sectors, but our go-to universe includes Boston Properties Inc. (NYSE: BXP), Liberty Property Trust (NYSE: LRY), Corporate Office Properties Trust Inc. (NYSE: OFC), Simon Property Group Inc. (NYSE: SPG), ProLogis (NYSE: PLD), Digital Realty Trust Inc. (NYSE: DLR), AMB Property Corp. (NYSE: AMB), and CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. (NYSE: CBG).  All of these are getting hit this morning.  We have provided some detailed information, brief technical analysis, and charts for each below.
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Posted on: July 16, 2009 – 10:02 am in Banking, Business Services, REIT, , , , , , , , ,

Will June PPI Even Be Relevant?

Burning Money PicTuesday’s report on the Producer Price Index used as the gauge against wholesale inflation may mark one of the more important trader events outside of earnings.  But there is a serious question on whether or not the number is even relevant if you consider the prices of June compared to today.  Since the end of June, we have seen a $10 drop in the price of oil.  We have seen only about a 2% to 3% drop in the price of gold during the same period.  So far, we have yet to see any of that nasty inflation and hyperinflation from all that new money being printed that many have feared.
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Posted on: July 13, 2009 – 10:13 am in Business Services, Commodities, Consumer Goods, Economy, Oil & Gas

CoTweet, Major Brand Twitter-Platform Gets VC Funding (WFMI, SBUX, MSFT, JBLU, F, PEP, S, KO)

Money Stack ImageNo one knows how to value social media’s dominant players.  The real value for Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace is elusive (and less than before).  Twitter is one of these businesses which suddenly has all the buzz, yet find someone who can tell you what the ultimate monetary value of Twitter is.  Many older internet users are hardly familiar with the term ‘blogging’… let alone microblogging.  But today a company operating as a Twitter platform operator and brand manager has received venture backing.

CoTweet is a web-based collaboration platform that helps companies reach and engage customers in real-time using Twitter for brand management. The product is already said to be used by Whole Foods Market Inc. (NASDAQ: WFMI), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), JetBlue Airways Corporation (NASDAQ: JBLU), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP), Sprint (NYSE: S), and The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO)
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Posted on: July 9, 2009 – 2:44 pm in Business Services, Internet, Private Equity, , , , , , , ,

Bing’s Growth Versus Google Dominance (MSFT, YHOO, GOOG, IACI)

Everyone has been trying to figure out how much Bing from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) has been able to take in search market share from Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).  Google remains unchallenged as the search default for the public, according to the latest data from Hitwise.  Bing is still growing, but so far it is likely have little to no impact on the earnings for at least this quarter of Google or Yahoo!.  At least that is the case if Hitwise’s US search numbers hold true from its 10 million internet users measured.  All three companies will report earnings in the next two weeks.
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Posted on: July 9, 2009 – 1:58 pm in Business Services, Internet, Media, , , ,

Double-Dip Evidence: CEO’s Looking Less Confident

Burning Money PicIt is hard to consider a report with only 227 polled as being a total bogey for the whims and will of the nation.  But Chief Executive magazine’s CEO Index that may show at least some concern even to those who would be fine with green shoots.  The report shows the monthly CEO Index having pulled back by about 2% or 1.4 points to reading of 74.3 points for June.  The reasons may be more interesting than the report, because this breaks 3 consecutive months of increases.
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Posted on: July 6, 2009 – 3:24 pm in Business Services, Economy, Management Change

UnitedHealth’s Lofty Ambition: $332 Billion in Healthcare Savings (UNH)

Money Stack ImageUnitedHealth Group, Inc. (NYSE: UNH) has listed a very lofty plan for how to reach the healthcare savings for America, which of course will include a private/public system.  It may sound lofty, but the company is putting out a report arguing technology can streamline the administrative processes and can create a potential savings of some $332 billion over the next decade.   This is a topic that spans healthcare to law, and politics.
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Posted on: June 30, 2009 – 11:32 am in Business Services, Financial Stocks, Law, Medical, Politics,